Bidirectional Associations Among Maternal Depressive Symptoms, Child Social Skills, and Child Executive Function Development Using Latent Change Scores

This study examined the bidirectional associations among maternal depressive symptoms, child social skills, and child executive function between 3 (T1) and 4 years (T2) of child age. Participants included 1,292 families and children (49% girls; 41% Black) from the Family Life Project, living in rural, low-income areas of the United States. Using an autoregressive and cross-lagged latent change score model, we found significant bidirectional associations between maternal depressive symptoms and child social skills, such that lower maternal depressive symptoms at T1 predicted a greater increase in child social skills from T1 to T2 and higher social skills at T1 predicted a greater decline in maternal depressive symptoms from T1 to T2. In addition, we found bidirectional associations between child social skills and executive function. Specifically, higher social skills predicted a greater increase in executive function from T1 to T2 and higher executive function at T1 predicted a smaller increase in social skills from T1 to T2. However, we found no evidence for the bidirectional relation between maternal depressive symptoms and child executive function. Our findings support the bidirectional model of child development and suggest that interventions targeting early maternal depression in underserved families may foster the growth of children's social skills during the preschool years. Additionally, enhancing child social skills may reduce maternal depressive symptoms and boost the growth of child executive function. The results also highlight the interactive nature between the growth of social skills and executive function during early childhood.